Tuesday 25 June 2024, 7.30pm
Ivan Pavlov aka CoH characterizes his latest solo work, Radiant Faults, as “the recording of a dialogue,” rather than a set of compositions. Crafted using a rare new synthesizer, the Silhouette Eins, Pavlov’s first encounter with the instrument across a long, late night session resulted in a continuous set of textures, patterns, and subliminal melodies. At some point during the process, he realized he was not alone: “It was as if something was speaking to me through the gear – the feeling was very intense. No matter how determined and specific I attempted to be, the results were something else. They felt like 'responses.’ This instantly reminded me of ELpH.”
ELpH is the name coined by Coil for a “celestial entity” that emanates from electronic equipment at mysterious moments, altering the creative process in unforeseen ways. They devised the term during studio sessions back in 1994, during which sustained software accidents ultimately seemed possessed of supernatural intelligence, spawning its own mythos. As a longtime member of Coil’s inner circle, Pavlov is steeped in ELpH’s ideology and influence – and highly qualified to identify an encounter of his own. Radiant Faults offers a compelling addition to the ELpH canon, at the threshold of music and manifestation, embracing the “divine quality of error.”
The Silhouette Eins is a unique instrument combining the 1920's concept of an "optical soundtrack" with a hardware synth interface to Pure Data: a visual programming language for producing interactive music, using real-time video signal in its synthesis of sound. Pavlov’s attempted manipulations were answered by indecipherable transmissions from some distant, unknowable place. Stark waveforms drone and bend against skeletal metronomes; murmured pulses flicker down empty corridors; high fluorescent tones gleam and glitch in zero gravity – the mood throughout is one of generative whispers, hidden sentience, and ghosts in the machinery. A post-human terrain of scaffolding, shadows, and semi-conscious circuitry, rippling with veiled energies.
Blanc Sceol (Stephen Shiell & Hannah White) will be performing ‘Kinetic Resonance’ with the ‘Orbit’, in a continuation of their collaboration with this self-created instrument. This two player instrument requires the performers to work together as the Orbit leads them into a cosmos of dynamic, pitch-shifting drones and harmonic rhythms.
Blanc Sceol are an artist duo who work in the expanded field of listening, sound, and performance. They instigate participatory gatherings to foster a reciprocal relationship with ecological communities. Their work is a spiral within the space-time continuum.
Phil Julian is a UK based composer and improviser active since the late 1990's. He has a prolific output encompassing sonic textures that run the gamut from harsh squalls of noise to compositions using hyper-minimalistic timbres and drones.
John Macedo is a sound artist from London. He has a pluralistic approach which reveals the ephemeral and hidden potential in all sounds, environments and technologies, often in intimate, immersive and intuitive ways. He performs solo and in collaboration with other musicians on modular synthesizer and custom-made software and electronics.
The pair have been working together since early 2012 using dual modular synthesisers, electronics and computers.
